“Yes, Cora, everything is right in my world.”

“The curse is no longer pending. Rosa is saved,” I went on.

“Yes, love, I just told you that.”

“So if we can get back, get Dash safely married to Rosa, then the land will be safe for our generation.”

“And you married to me,” he stated firmly.

“And me married to you,” I whispered softly.

He glared at me.

“Then all will be well,” I whispered.

“Yes, Cora, all will be well,” he semi-repeated with obvious strained patience.

“So that means,” I kept whispering, “I can tell Mom and Dad and Phoebe that, when I go back with you, it will just be you and our child and me and my sister, alive and happy, in a fairytale land and they’ll feel better letting me go.”

I watched Tor’s body go still. Then I watched his face get soft and his eyes get warm.

Then he whispered, “Yes, my love, that’s what it means.”

“That will make me feel better,” I whispered back.

He stared at me about a nanosecond before, without letting my hand go, he stood, rounded the table, pulled me out of my chair and into his arms where he plastered me to his body and laid a wet, hot, fantastic and very long kiss on me which I returned all the while melting into his arms.

When he lifted his head I looked in his eyes and whispered, “I love you, my prince.”

At my words, Tor smiled his freaking unbelievably beautiful smile.

Then we were hit with a wave of sound when a loud, spontaneous cheer went up in the coffee house.

“All right, dawg!” some guy yelled.

I felt heat hit my cheeks and I pulled in my lips. Tor’s smile just got bigger.

“Jeez, you guys, seriously, you keep that up, you need to get a room, like, pronto,” Phoebe said and I turned my head to see my grinning friend, her friend Brianna who I had met a couple of times and another woman joining our table.

The other woman was gazing with open fascination at Tor and I knew she was the Circe back in the other world’s friend. And I knew she knew Tor was from a parallel universe.

And I also knew that my crazy life was about to get better… or decidedly worse.

Oh boy.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Torn Away

I was sitting on the armchair in my living room, feet up on the coffee table, legs bent, pad of paper on my knees, making lists. Tor was stretched out on the couch, his fingers wrapped around a bottle of beer that was resting on his abs, his eyes on a baseball game on the TV.

So… totally… a man.

This was after our conversation with Phoebe, Brianna and Marlene. It was after we had gone by the mall to get Tor a cell. And after we had come home, Tor stopping blocks away and getting out of the car to walk back just in case the apartment was under surveillance (somehow, he was standing outside my door by the time I got in the driver’s seat, drove home, found a place to park on the street and walked up to my apartment proving he wasn’t just strong, my man was fast and, I hoped, stealthy). I’d made Tor a dinner of spiral pasta, spaghetti sauce with meatballs, garlic bread, salad and beer (for him, diet root beer, for me) and Tor had shared he liked this meal far more than bologna sandwiches and Cheetos. Obviously, we followed dinner with red velvet cake because that cake could be a week old and it would still kick ass.

At the coffee house, we had learned from Phoebe that Noc had not given her anything.

Not that first thing.

Except he appeared pissed that, first, she was there and not Cora (as anyone who was getting the boot would be) and second, that he was getting the boot without explanation and for what appeared to be no reason. She’d tried to pry but he was closed up tight and after his hand gripped the handle of the suitcase, he didn’t hang around long.

She did stress, however, that he appeared pissed but she got the sense he felt relief and that mostly he just wanted his stuff. She also reported that he seemed distracted, acted like he had better things to do and that he just wanted to get the hell out of there.

This was a disappointment but not unexpected.

What was not a disappointment but was a shock (some of that shock good, as in possibly very good, some of it was bad, as in really bad) was all that we learned from Marlene.

First, we learned that the alternate Circe, in an effort to bring back the, uh, real Circe, had gone all out to find a witch in this world who would be able to bring the real Circe back to her world (how’s that for confusing?).

Then we learned, thankfully, as Tor confirmed from Marlene’s additional information, that this world was, indeed, Korwahk. And the witch had provided the information that there weren’t an infinite number of worlds. There was Tor’s and there was ours.

Then it was confirmed that Circe was sent back not by the witch. Circe’s King Lahn had found some means to transport her back to him. However, the witch had, with great confidence, assured Circe’s father who assured Marlene that Circe was safely back where she wanted to be. However, although the witch did not send Circe back, Marlene was relatively certain (relatively, yikes!) that she had the power to send Tor and I back.

And Marlene had also, prior to meeting with us, called Circe’s Dad, found out the location and swung by this witch’s trailer (yes, trailer) only to discover she was no longer there. In fact, the whole trailer was gone.

This was bad.

What was a surprise was that Marlene had said the witch was old, she was blind and her name was Clarabelle.

At that, I gasped and Tor’s eyes sliced to me. He showed and shared no response even when I quizzed him about it later in the car telling him I thought this was good news.

His reply was simply, “You are not the other Cora, this Noc is not me and this witch is not the other Clarabelle. We have no idea of her character. What we do know is she is a witch and anyone who dabbles in magic is suspect. We must tread cautiously.”

I had to admit, I was totally down with that.

I questioned Marlene more about Circe’s other world and learned that what Tor and Phoebe had said was true. Things for Circe, like me, had not started out all that great with Circe and her King Lahn and this was to say the least (she was, indeed, hunted, “claimed”, as in raped by this King Lahn, then installed as his queen) but somehow he rallied, they ended up getting on well, as in very well, so well she was desperately in love with him, desperately heartbroken when she’d left him, totally into having his child and apparently blissfully happy when she got back, gave him twins and was living her life like a queen (literally). She was so happy, she was apparently totally fine with leaving everything behind and living with this guy in his primitive world for the rest of her natural born days.